


The Improper Parents

by roseprinted



Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-10 00:16:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11115891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseprinted/pseuds/roseprinted
Summary: “Do we have a no-girls-in-bedrooms rule, do you know?”“What do you mean?”“Well, Ben has a girl in his room, and I’m not sure if that’s something he’s supposed to be doing.”(in which Ben's parents try to... well, parent.)





	The Improper Parents

**Author's Note:**

> In rewriting Operation Bliss a thousand little story tangents seem to have appeared. One that wouldn't go away was Ben's parents - so here they are.

When Deborah gets home she finds Daniel in the kitchen, staring at the ceiling in contemplation.

“Hello, love,” as she sets down her laptop bag and moves towards the kettle. “Article going badly?”

“Hm? Oh, no. Well yes actually, it’s a disaster, but that’s not what I was thinking about.”

“Oh? Did you want one?”

“Please. Do we have a no-girls-in-bedrooms rule, do you know?”

She sets down the tea caddy and looks at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Ben has a girl in his room, and I’m not sure if that’s something he’s supposed to be doing.”

“Just a girl? None of the others?” Ben’s friends all sort of intermingle in her head; they come and go with such frequency.

“No, just her.”

“Well then.” There’s a silence between them, as the kettle starts up.

“He is a teenager now, I suppose. I think this is what parenting teenagers is like.” For the hundredth time, she wonders why babies aren’t delivered with an instruction manual.

Daniel smiles, as if he knows what she’s thinking. “Yes, but he’s fourteen. Isn’t that a bit, um, young, for that sort of thing?”

“It might not be any sort of thing. He’s had girl friends before, like Cassie, when we were in Reading.”

“Deb, he was five.”

“Fair point.” She pours the kettle into the pot and swirls the water around. “I suppose we need to decide if we make a rule.”

“It seems like the proper parent thing to do.” She laughs. Ever since Benedick was born and they were staring at this helpless beloved thing that drove them ‘round the bend, they’ve settled disputes by deciding what _proper parents_ would do. The ones with the manuals.

“But isn’t it rather, I mean, presumptuous? We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t even know if girls are the issue, Dan, so what do we do if he’s in there with one of the others? He has a right to some privacy; we can’t say he never has friends over.”

“True.” There’s an almighty thump from the ceiling.

“ _Ben, you complete prick, give it back!”_

_“But I want to see it!”_

She raises her eyebrows to Dan. “It sounds like everybody’s clothes are still on.”

He nods. “Okay. You’re right. It’s not like we’d ever manage to keep it up, anyway.”

“No.” She hands him his cup, thinking about the proper parents. “But you do need to talk to him.”

He turns, wide-eyed, mock horror on his face. “Please, please, please do not say what you’re about to say.”

“Daniel!”

“I am begging you, _begging you_ not to say it.” He holds his hands up in a plea, and she rolls her eyes at the dramatics.

“Dan, we absolutely have to make sure that he knows about safe sex.”

“Don’t they do that sort of thing in school?”

“And what if he isn’t paying attention? What if he’s ill on that day, or something?” She adores Ben, she really does, but he had the attention span of a gnat even before he hit puberty.

“I think they spend more than a day on it, dear.”

“Dan. This is the deal. Mothers go through childbirth, fathers have the talk with their son. End of.”

“Fine,” he pushes back his glasses, sighs, as if she’s just set him Hercules’ twelve labours. “But one day that childbirth card’s going to expire, you know.”

“Maybe once he’s forty.”

 

* * *

 

 

The phone rings and Deborah swears under her breath. If this is Caroline, or Andy, or Shawna, then she might actually start screaming right in the middle of the office.

It’s Daniel, which is odd. “Hello?”

“Hi, listen, I think we have a problem.”

“With what?” She’s baffled. Dan never rings her, unless she’s really late. They just email.

“With Ben.”

“What’s wrong?” She straightens up in her chair, _stupid stupid stupid_.

“No, no he’s fine, it’s just-“ relax.

“Don’t scare me, Daniel!”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to. It’s just – so you know Beatrice?”

“Ben’s Beatrice?” She focuses, tries to pick a face from the Ben-friend soup. Blonde, cheerful? Some sort of fight years ago, but she’s been around more recently. Every other word out of his mouth. Beatrice Duke, Queen of Mean.

“How many other Beatrices do you know? Yeah, so I went home early for a change of scene, because this chapter really isn’t working. And I went into the kitchen, and they were… well…” he tails off.

She can actually feel her eyes pop, which is a new one. “In the _kitchen_?”

“Yes – wait, no! No, no. Oh God, why would you even suggest that? But they were… kissing. With enthusiasm.”

She stares at her wall calendar. Funnily enough, discussing the psychosexual development of their child wasn’t something she’d factored into today’s schedule.

“Just kissing?”

“ _Just_? Deb, I have been through a harrowing experience here.” He’s such a drama queen.

“For God’s sakes, Dan. It’s not like it’s a surprise, he barely talks about anything other than Beatrice. Didn’t you see this coming?”

“Being confronted by raging hormones in my own kitchen? No, actually. And what do you mean, it’s not a surprise? You knew about this?”

“Well. I didn’t know they were together, but it was pretty obvious he had a crush.”

“You never told me! You know I have no radar for these things!”

She does, actually. She remembers the months and months of bumping into him in the MCR, wanting him to ask her if she wanted a drink. The night they were both in the library and he kept staring, how she almost stormed over to ask him what was happening. The way she had to take his hand first as they sat by the river, and he turned around and beamed.

“Dan, it’s fine. Do you want to go for dinner somewhere and talk about it?”

“And leave them alone? Deb, it was _very_ enthusiastic.”

“Meet me for dinner. If they’re going to do anything after your appearance, we’re not really going to be able to stop them. Ben’s eighteen, Daniel. He’s moving out next year. He’s grown.”

“I don’t think I agree with you.”

“We’ll argue over dinner. East Garden Kitchen? I’ll ring.”

“Okay. But if we’re babysitting our grandchild this time next year, I’m blaming you.”

“You gave him the talk, didn’t you? That’s not going to happen.”

“Well. About that. I gave him the leaflets…”

 

* * *

 

Deborah likes Beatrice.

It’s something of a surprise. Other mothers she knows, her colleagues in the faculty, are always moaning about their children’s significant others. That’s when they’re not moaning about their lack of significant other. She’s not sure what the manual says but it seems she’s supposed to be jealous, or to have lionized Ben to the extent that nobody will ever be good enough for him.

She doesn’t feel that way, but then she’s never been a proper parent. She likes Beatrice, her spirit and her charm. She likes the way that Benedick is quieter around her, like he’s finally found someone else with good things to say. She likes that Beatrice seems to get their dynamic.

Daniel likes Beatrice too. He likes her feistiness, and the way she gets things done. Benedick inherited the worst of Dan’s anxiety, and the worst of Deborah’s laissez-faire. Beatrice is good for him.

In the middle of one night, Dan turns to her.

“Do you think Ben and Beatrice will get married in the end?” He’s asking her because he doesn’t know, because his radar doesn’t work.

“I don’t know.” She smiles as he kisses her shoulder. “I think they’ll be together for a long time, though.”

“Like us?”

“Like us.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ben's parents being academics is canon, and once that was mentioned a few things snapped into place for me. Of course that's why he's moved across the world, and probably moved around before that (the temporary-best-friend thing being characteristic of transient children). Plus, the boy reads random studies in his free time.
> 
> beatriceeagle and marydebenham's excellent analysis of LLL reads his parents as older, somewhat bewildered academics. For me they were always young and very bewildered academics, jumping from post-doc contracts to temporary project funding to fixed term lecturer jobs with an unexpected baby and a grumpy cat in tow.


End file.
